


how sad to face the judgement

by missaa



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Hannibal and Will get caught, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Imprisonment, M/M, Post-Fall (Hannibal), Will Graham Loves Hannibal Lecter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:02:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23831269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missaa/pseuds/missaa
Summary: Will and Hannibal's borrowed time runs out.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 7
Kudos: 49





	how sad to face the judgement

It is three hours before Will realizes he is never going to see Hannibal again. 

Hour one, he is beaten, an act that leaves him no time to think about what comes after. He is forced into the fetal position and kicked until he coughs out blood that he is sure comes from his lungs, and then he is cuffed and dragged into the back of a waiting car. He bleeds all over the leather seats. Unconsciousness would be a mercy he is not spared. 

Hour two, he is stripped bare, dressed in only the bruises he’s been left with. It would be humiliating if the pain weren’t so great. He is given nothing to lean on, and his knees shake as his pockets are emptied and his naked body is photographed from every unflattering angle. They suture his open wounds without a topical, without a compassionate hand. They want him to feel it. They don’t bother to scrape him for DNA- the evidence is clear in the sheer fact that he is still alive. 

Hour three, he is thrown into a cell, degraded to a slate gray jumpsuit and a cot without a pillow. He sits on the floor and curls into himself, kidneys and ribs aching something fierce. It is then that he comes to a single, agonizing conclusion, one that trumps even the deepest physical pain- this is where he will die, and it will be without Hannibal. The last time they touched, standing in the kitchen as blue lights blinded them through the windows, will truly be the last. His eyes unfocus, and the uniform rows of bricks on the walls double. The feeling of suffocation doubles, too. 

The next few hours go by in an indistinguishable haze. Will spends most of his time drifting in the liminal space between sleep and wake, a choice he doesn’t make on his own- the pain makes it hard to focus, and his body is so tired. He could cry, but he is exhausted. He could scream, but it would hurt. So he sleeps. 

A guard brings him something to eat. He’s starving, and he accepts the offering with as much gratefulness as he can muster. It’s some kind of meatloaf-esque dish, with powdered mashed potatoes and pulverized corn and watered-down ketchup. There was a time when he could enjoy this kind of meal, but his tastes have drastically changed, and the food sours in his stomach almost immediately. 

Will finds sick humor in the way it tastes exactly the same splattering back onto his tray as it did going down. 

A day passes before Jack comes to see him. Will gleans this information only by the change in guards, and the fact that he was able to drag himself onto the cot at some point during the night. Jack has gone gray, not so much in the hair as in the face, and Will spots a glimmer of grim satisfaction when their eyes meet. 

“You finally did it,” Will croaks, unable to pry himself off of the cot long enough to get closer to the bars. He licks his dry lips- he doesn’t dare ask for water. “Are you at peace, Jack? Do you feel… accomplished?”

Jack smiles. “Alive, Graham. I feel alive.”

Will says little else after that, aside from Hannibal’s name, to which Jack laughs so loudly as he walks away that it makes Will’s head throb anew. It is only then, after he’s left alone again, that Will cradles his injured torso in his arms and sobs, once. A singular, wretched sound that comes from his diaphragm before his cell lapses back into deafening silence. 

A week passes before Will hears any news of Hannibal at all. His bruises have started to turn a sickening yellow, but his headache has yet to grant him any reprieve. He’s likely concussed, his memory eluding him every time he tries to recall information. But he is sure he will remember Jack’s face as he comes up to the cell, the look of utter disgust. Of  _ hatred.  _

“We thought he wouldn’t talk,” Jack says through gritted teeth. “But he has. He’s talked  _ more  _ than enough. In  _ detail,  _ Will. Detail about the two of you, of what you’ve done. There was more than we could’ve pieced together with the evidence. It’s—“

“Art. It was  _ art _ ,” Will cuts him off. He laughs, then dissolves into a coughing fit. It hurts so badly, every jolt of his rib cage, but he welcomes the pain. He can only imagine what horrors Hannibal described, how his voice sounded when he made his interrogators visualize entrails, disembowelments, perfect, juicy cuts of human flesh on silver forks. He sobers, eventually, but tremors wrack his frame in lieu of his attack. “Let me— let me see him, Jack. Please.”

Jack stares at him blankly. His shock is hidden well, but never entirely. “You will,” he says after a moment. “I’m sure you will.”

And he does. 

There is a pane of glass and three weeks between them when Will finally sees Hannibal again. They are placed in adjoining cells, and Will crawls as close to the glass as he can get. Hannibal’s face is painted green and blue. His palm is scraped where he flattens it against the glass. 

“We were careful,” Will says. His words leave on a shaky exhale. “No more grand displays. No… no trading flowers for organs. We were c-  _ clean.” _

Hannibal rests his forehead on the pane. Will can see the poorly disguised tremors, can feel the pain radiating off of him. The illness. The  _ surrender. _ It’s horrifying. 

“We were siphoning borrowed time, Will,” Hannibal says quietly. He sucks in a painful sounding breath. “Our supply has run dry.” 

If he could phase through the glass, bring Hannibal to his chest and hold him there for the rest of his life, Will wouldn’t even give it a first thought. He swallows hard. “We should take out a loan.”

Hannibal chuckles. His eyes slide over to catch Will’s, and for a second Will can’t meet them. But he does. He forces himself to look. “I’m going to die, Will,” Hannibal says, and there is no desperation in his voice. No fear. He sounds like an echo caught in an empty jar. Endless and numbing. “Jack will ensure it.”

“No,” Will says. There  _ is _ desperation,  _ is  _ fear in his voice. He shakes his head. “He won’t. He  _ can’t.  _ He told me— told me once. He needs  _ me  _ to do it. He wouldn’t. He’ll let us rot here, but he won’t take direct action. I know he won’t.”

Hannibal smiles. It is a sad, sad smile. 

“Oh, Will. Is it strange that I would still prefer to die by your hand?” 

The guards do not grant them any more time after that. Will tries to say  _ I love you, Hannibal Lecter, I love you,  _ but all he can do is stare. 

“I’ll miss you,” he manages to say. 

The last words there ever were. 

Hannibal is whisked away to his own cell, and Will is brought back to his, an action he does not have the strength to fight, and they give him water and a sandwich that he cannot eat. The bread is stale. The baloney is abhorrent. And the gnawing pit in his stomach hollows him out like a jack-o-lantern from the inside. 

He drinks the water. It’s all he can do. 

Two and a half years lapse before Will hears anything of his love. Of Hannibal. He is muzzled and restrained and strapped to an upright gurney before they take him from his cell, and something deep within him stirs the closer they get to their destination. He knows where he is going. He does nothing to fight it. 

The guards set the gurney down, and then Will knows. 

There is, once again, a pane of glass between them, though Will is the only one who can see it. It’s a mirror to Hannibal, who is lying on a bed perfectly complacent and smiling and attached to so many monitors and IV lines he might as well be in hospice. Will catches only a brief glimpse of him, only has a second to commit every last one of his beautiful features to memory before a masked guard pulls a black hood over Hannibal’s head. “No.” Will whispers this to no one. He does not blink. 

Will knows how this works. Hannibal’s form slumps- Pentothal. He stiffens- Pavulon. The monitors scream- potassium chloride. A harmoniously lethal combination. 

“You did it,” Will says numbly when Jack finally comes into the room, looking utterly satisfied with himself. He is sure the grief will set in soon. He has yet to feel a thing. “You killed the Chesapeake Ripper.” 

“No, Will,” Jack sounds so far away. “He surrendered.” 

**Author's Note:**

> this show makes me miserable thanks for reading


End file.
